Prussian Guard

“ Men appear, raised from their feet, and raised high in the air.
"Caught in a vise between the British and the French, the Guard alone remains. Ten times the shattered remnants of the Kaiser's proud regiment charged, and ten times was thrown back, first against the French, then against the British. Crying, 'Comrades, comrades!' hundreds began throwing their guns aside.
"At 2 o'clock it was over. The Allies had lost 1,200 men. Only prisoners remained of the Second Prussian regiment of the Guard. ”

“ The Kaiser was now about to follow the example of Napoleon and make one mighty effort to snatch victory out of defeat by launching his famous Prussian Guards against the stubborn foe. The Prussian Guards are the very apple of the Kaiser's eye; they are all picked men, over six feet in height, of wonderful discipline and unquenchable courage, and they count it the highest honour that life holds to be selected from the ordinary regiments for service as the bodyguard of the Emperor. If living men could "hack their way through," these were the men to do it. ”

“ Out of one hundred thousand French troops, composed of the corps of Marshals Soult, Lannes, Augereau, Ney, Murat, and the guard, not more than fifty thousand had fought, and they had been sufficient to overthrow the Prussian army. The greater part of that army, seized with a sort of vertigo, throwing away its arms, ceasing to know either its colors or its officers, covered all the roads of Thuringin. About twelve thousand Prussians and Saxons, killed and wounded, about four thousand French killed and wounded also, strewed the ground from Jena to Weimar. ”

“ Benedict rode near the prince, fulfilling the functions of a staff officer.
The army had left its cantonments in order to proceed to Gotha: but at ten in the morning, the vanguard, as it arrived on the banks of the Unstrut, was attacked by two Prussian regiments, commanded by the Generals Flies and Seckendorff. They were able to mount nearly a thousand men, both troops of the guard and landwehr. ”

“ But in spite of losses and sorrow and sickness I find the men surprisingly cheerful and willing to carry on. They have what soldiers most wish for, Victory. And they know now that the men who opposed their path and had to give way to their persistence were the famous Prussian Guards, of the very flower of the German Military Machine. The old 69th had again lived up to its reputation of the past; there were no German troops, no troops in the world that could withstand its stubborn bravery. ”

“ At that moment, it was announced one morning, to the amazement of the Prussians and of Europe, that an elderly gentleman, who had never taken any active part in politics, but had lived in the most exclusive circles of the aristocracy, and the Prussian Guards, was about to enter on the task which the boldest men had found beyond their courage, and the ablest beyond their capacity. ”

“ But both erred in undervaluing the German war forces; they did not believe that the hostile army would be able to keep Paris in a state of blockade, and at the same time engage the armies on the south and north, east and west. They had no conception of the hidden, inexhaustible strength of the Prussian army organization—of a nation in arms which could send forth constant reinforcements of battalions and recruits, and fresh bodies of disciplined troops to fill the gaps left in the ranks by the wounded and fallen. ”

“ No condition in life can be more active, and at the same time have less variety in it, than that of a Prussian officer in the time of peace. He is continually employed in the same occupation, and continually occupied in the same place. There is no rotation of the troops as in the British service. The regiments which were placed in Berlin, Magdeburg, Schweidnitz, and the other garrisons at the conclusion of the war, remain there still. ”

“ As if by magic the tents were struck, the men sprang to their ranks and were drawn up in battle array, the artillery opened its fire, the seeming inertness which had prevailed was with extraordinary rapidity exchanged for warlike activity; the complete discipline of the Prussian army had never been more notably displayed. ”

“ It gives a curious contrast of the nature of belligerency in the nineteenth century, to know that the Prussian army now reckons three hundred thousand men, and that, on the first rumour of war, it would probably number half-a-million. ”

“ On a vast tableland, slightly undulating on the surface, was drawn up the whole Prussian army in battle array,—a splendid force of nigh thirty thousand infantry, flanked by ten thousand sabres, the finest cavalry in Europe. By some inconceivable error of tactics, they had offered no other resistance to the French ascent of the mountain than the skirmishing troops, which fell back as we came on; and even now they seemed to wait patiently for the enemy to form before the conflict should begin. ”

“ That event found Germany fully prepared. The lessons of the campaign of 1866 had not been lost upon the Prussian General Staff. The artillery was improved alike in matériel and in drill-tactics, Napoleon I.'s plan of bringing massed batteries to bear on decisive points being developed with Prussian thoroughness. The cavalry learnt to scout effectively and act as "the eyes and ears of an army," as well as to charge in brigades on a wavering foe. Universal military service had been compulsory in Prussia since 1813 ”

“ Here come the heavy Landwehr Regiments, in dark blue tunics and bright helmets; in their rear ride the Italians, their dark blue jackets, all picked out with red, are armed with long lances with black and white pennons. These are followed by the Dragoons, in light blue tunics with different coloured facings; Hussars, with black fur shakos and cloaks, and trousers of light grey. And after them thunder the Artillery, on a war footing, with some 34,000 horses and a proportionate number of men.
In time of peace the Prussian army is only 122,260 strong, with [367] 5500 officers ”

“ A decent restraint, as of people who were not for a moment to be led into any foreign idea of social gayety at a watering-place, was visible everywhere. A spectacled Prussian officer in full uniform passed along the hall, halted for a moment at the doorway as if contemplating an armed invasion, thought better of it, and took his uniform away into the sunlight of the open square, where it was joined by other uniforms, and became by contrast a miracle of unbraced levity. ”

“ Let us, then, march upon them, since forbearance will not check their infatuation. Let the Prussian army experience the fate which it shared fourteen years ago. Let us teach them that if it is easy to obtain an increase of territory and power with the friendship of the great people, their enmity (which can only be provoked by the neglect of prudence and reason) is more terrible than the storms of the ocean. ”

“ If the king, charged with watching over the external safety of the State, with notifying the legislative body of imminent hostilities, informed of the movements of the Prussian army and not making it known in any way to the National Assembly; informed, or at least able to presume, that this army would attack us in a month, was slow in making preparations for repulsion; if there was a just anxiety about the progress the enemy might make into the interior of France, and if a reserve camp were evidently necessary to check or stop this progress ”

“ The Prussians were also at that time blockading Landrecies and Maubeuge—also garrisoned by local levies, from whom little resistance was to be expected. The Anglo-Prussian Allies halted on the 23rd, for the purpose of collecting their stragglers, and of bringing up ammunition; and thereby a much-needed rest was afforded to men who, for more than eight days, had been constantly and actively occupied in the arduous labours of the war. During the halt the two Generals, Wellington and Blücher, met to decide how a united advance could best be made upon Paris. ”

“ Every one knows the absurd point to which military etiquette is carried in Prussia.
A Pomeranian general—Pomerania may be called the Prussian Bœotia—being in garrison at Darmstadt and being bored even to the fullest possibility of Darmstadt boredom, was standing at his window, wishing for a conflagration, a revolution, an earthquake—anything—when he beheld an officer in the distance—an officer minus his sword! An awful breach of discipline! "Ah!" thought the delighted general, "here is a lieutenant to make a scapegoat of. ”

“ Suddenly the sound of firing, in the distance, broke on his ear, now rapid, now merely dropping shots; occasionally, for a short space, ceasing altogether. He listened attentively, and the sound grew louder. He judged, from the quarter whence it came, that it was the advanced guard driving the Prussians back from the village of Fleurus. If the two were engaged, it must be the Prussians who were retiring; the French guards would never give ground to such a foe—for St. Just, like most of Napoleon's officers, held the Prussians in contempt. ”

“ No statesman could neglect to examine the causes of these stupendous events, and the institutions which had rendered them capable of realization: no soldier could abstain from studying the new conditions under which hostilities in the future must be conducted, and the numerous questions of warlike interest which modern science had introduced. It is not surprising that the Prussian system should speedily have become our model in the affairs relating to the army, and that the British nation should determine to make a searching inquiry into its military concerns. ”

“ There was a larger proportion of veterans among the Prussians at St. Privat than in the Highland Brigade at Tel-el-Kebir, and that gave a certain advantage, doubtless, to the former. Some would lean on the superior “citizenhood” of the Prussian over the British soldier; but our Highland regiments are235 exceptionally respectably recruited. Yet I venture to set down as the main distinction that, while the Prussian soldier of 1870 was a soldier of the “shoulder-to-shoulder” era, the British soldier of 1882 was a creature of the “get-to-cover” period. ”

“ The principle of universal military service, thus called into existence in Prussia in time of war, had been continued through fifty years of peace, and enabled Prussia, with a population scarcely more than half as numerous as that of Austria, to place upon the decisive field of Königgrätz a larger army than that of her opponent.
The Prussian system, which has since been copied by all the great military nations of Europe, is, in its essential features, as follows: Every able-bodied man in the kingdom, upon reaching the age of twenty years, is available for military service ”

“ As for Prussian militarism, or, in other words, the military caste, the victories of 1866 and 1870 completely turned its head. It came to regard itself as the very embodiment of the nation. Never had it been more powerful or more domineering than in the generation preceding the present war. Woe to the civilian who ventured to criticise the army, or got in an officer’s way on the pavement, or did not cringe before the fiat of a corps commander! ”

“ Bad staff work, and tactics which can only be described as those of pique, precipitated the disaster, and in seven weeks the victorious Prussians were almost at the gates of Vienna.
The result of the war, and of the constitutional changes about this time, was the re-adoption of the principles of 1806-1813, the abolition of conscription and long service in favour of universal service for a short term, and a thorough reform in the methods of command and staff work. It has been said of the Prussian army that “discipline is—the officers.” ”

“ But three-quarters of the Prussian army are armed with needle guns which fire eight or ten shots a minute. The time is past when, as said Marshal Saxe, the rifle is only the handle of the bayonet; and of whom did he say that? Was it not the French, a fiery and warlike nation, not methodical and military like the Austrians. You know, mein Gott, victory is an entirely moral question; to inspire the enemy with an unaccountable fear is the secret. Generally, when two regiments meet, one of them runs without having ever come to grips with the enemy. ”

“ The prevailing feeling, however, at the present time in Baden, among the lower classes, seems the hatred of the occupation of the Prussian army, which has saved the land from utter anarchy. The very men who have been taught by their demagogues to clamour for "German Unity" as a pretext for insurrection, look on the Prussian military as usurping aliens and foreign oppressors. Military occupation is certainly the prevailing feature of the country. Prussian troops are everywhere—in every town, in every village, in every house, in every hovel. ”

“ Suddenly one day—it was in the third week of the siege—a Prussian officer, under a flag of truce, came into the fortress with a summons to surrender, bringing the news that the revolutionary army had crossed the Swiss frontier, and had therefore ceased to exist; that not a single armed insurgent remained on German soil, and that the Prussian commander would consent to permit any man whom the garrison of Rastatt would entrust with such a mission, to convince himself of these facts with his own eyes, and to this end they would give him safe conduct wherever he might wish to go. ”

“ Your Majesty forgets that I made the campaign with the Prussian army. I did not do it for the mere pleasure of hearing cannon, of counting the dead, and of sleeping on the battlefield, where I assure you one sleeps very badly, or for the purpose of giving you what was nevertheless well worth having, two posts on the Baltic, of which Prussia stood in great need. No, I made the campaign with the object of trying the Austrians, and I repeat that they are behind us in everything—discipline, armaments, use of arms: they have bad rifles, bad artillery, and worse powder. ”